


Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

by hotot



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon Compliant, Extremely Dubious Consent, Gift Fic, M/M, Masturbation, Murder Kink, One-Sided Attraction, POV Vulpes Inculta, Revenge Sex, Terrible People, Voyeurism, spy shit, this is the edgiest thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:40:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotot/pseuds/hotot
Summary: Vulpes has been tasked with delivering the mark of Caesar to the Courier. While on the Strip, he follows, and listens, and learns more than he had bargained for.





	Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ghostofshe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofshe/gifts).



> For my wonderful friend for a holiday fic exchange. Because there's not enough of this pair.
> 
> Content note (spoilers for the fic tho): Tagged for dub/noncon cuz seducing someone and then murdering them is not consensual, like at all.
> 
> Edit: changed the title

It is dusk. The lights spin and blink along the Strip, pointing the way towards the various cesspools of distraction. They are easy to ignore, for Vulpes has his eyes on the red-haired man. The Courier stumbling over the threshold of the single silent place on the strip. The Lucky 38 looms above, and the Mojave Express Courier looks pale and shaken, eyes wide as if he has seen a ghost. Which perhaps he has. Who knows what has transpired high above the Strip in a place no one has stepped foot in, in living memory. 

It is the first time Vulpes has seen the courier stumble. It is unlike the man to look so untethered. From what Vulpes has seen of him at least.

Vulpes watches him from the steps of Gomorrah, eyes following without seeming to do so, ignoring the monument to corruption that looms above, one which casts its shadow too far across the Mojave for Vulpes’ comfort. A shadow that has only grown longer since Vulpes first encountered the Courier in Nipton. Back then, Vulpes had heard the rumors of the attempted murder of a Mojave Express courier, and only after had he realized that the red-haired man with the scar on his temple was the very same who had survived two bullets to the head.

The Courier is not a large man, but he carries himself with the bearing of a soldier. His lanky build hides a coiled strength. His presence is desert-worn and hard-bitten, with sly, hungry-dog eyes and a thin mouth, tight at the corners.  He has red hair and his skin is dusted with freckles from the sun. He is not of the desert, not a tribal. Not with such a fair complexion hidden always under a broad-brimmed hat. He is a profligate from California and became a package courier, rumors say. They say he left California to escape the noose. Such a lowly job, a package courier. Though Vulpes supposes his purpose on the Strip is to deliver the Mark of Caesar. But the will of his lord is more worthy of carrying than some hireling shuffling worthless scrap across the desert.

The Courier walks with a slight hitch to his gait, as if his left hip pains him. This man was to be the one to deliver the Platinum Chip to Mr. House, the catalyst that was to spurn events forward towards the confrontation at Hoover Dam, and bring about the defeat of the NCR at the hands of Caesar. The demise of the profligates’ hold on the region will hail an ultimate victory for the Legion and they will sweep across the Mojave in a crimson tide, cleansing New Vegas of NCR scum, and the profligate tribes.

Vulpes shakes his head to clear it from such grand and distant dreams. It will come to pass, but for the moment his task is to contact the Courier and summon him to Fortification Hill, bearing the mark of Caesar. To keeps his eyes and ears upon him as if they were Caesar’s own.

And the Courier is a man to watch, regardless. Vulpes knows the rumors will grow now that the Courier has stepped through House’s threshold and returned again, anointed with all the blessings and curses of one uplifted to greatness. The Legion can use him.

Vulpes straightens his tie, checks the glittering pin at his throat. Tugs on his cuffs and flicks a bit of dust from his jacket. He trails the man into the Tops Casino and props himself against the wall inside. It is difficult not to feel stiff and awkward in these degenerate clothes, the pull of pants encasing his hips and legs unfamiliar, making him long for a tunic and his pteruge. But Vulpes is the greatest of Caesar’s frumentarii, his willing eyes and ears among the wretched, and he will wear what he must, do what he must, an extension of Caesar’s will among the Legion’s enemies.

So he watches the Courier. Smiles small to himself when the man keeps a holdout weapon, the shape of a small handgun, likely a .22, just visible on the inside of his thigh.

Vulpes frowns as a joke surfaces to his mind, he had once heard from an NCR Trooper-- _Is that a .45 in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?_

Disgusting. Vulpes shakes his head again, willing the clouding distraction, the taint of degeneracy to abandon him. The Courier strides into the casino without a glance in his direction, and the hitch in his gait is nearly gone. Long, even strides. Hiding his weakness as he approaches his enemy. Vulpes trails him, busies himself with a slot machine, curious if the man will extract revenge or if he will talk to the checkered man who shot him in the head.

Benny Gecko’s eyes go wide and he begins to sweat and babble, and it makes Vulpes smile.

The Courier talks. He _propositions_ the checkered man. Loudly, and blatantly. For all to hear. Benny calls him sick. Hems and haws and the Courier never relents. And then he agrees. To whatever the Courier has just bent to whisper into his ear. And then they head upstairs together, to Benny’s private quarters.

Vulpes follows. There are routes through the Tops that he has learned over the past year, ways in and out of floors he has no business being on. Such as the service hallway leading to the Presidential suite...

There he kneels. Ear pressed to the wall, he listens. 

At first he hears low murmurs. The checkered man’s uncouth laugh, the Courier’s smooth, gravely chuckle in return. The checkered man’s oily voice laps through the wall, clinging at Vulpes like something unclean he cannot wash off. The Courier has questions, though his words are sparse. Direct, a slow drawl. Benny answers readily enough. Why he shot him in the head. Nothing personal, he says.

The chip. Vulpes frowns as more words rise up to his mind, words from an old world play about madness and revenge. _The chip’s the thing wherein will catch the the conscience of a king_ … 

And then Benny offers the Courier another option. Not House, but Benny himself. A New Vegas run by the Chairmen. A new vision of the Mojave. As if any of it truly matters. Vulpes almost laughs at how easy it would be to unseat the Chairmen. Even with their securitrons. They are all fools. But… _the chip’s the thing_.

He wonders what the Courier wants. If he might side with this man instead of exacting revenge. If he is manipulating Benny or if he is simply deficit in intelligence. Unable to play the game the chip has set in motion.

Vulpes cannot respect a man who does not exact the vengeance he so rightly deserves, if only he will take it.

But the Courier doesn’t answer. Does not commit. And that makes Vulpes wonder more. Is he clever, or is he stupid? He cannot tell. But other noises emerge, telling Vulpes other things about the Courier. That he has needs beyond chips and war and politics.

The noises are soft at first, a whispered word, a command. A grunt. The creak of bedsprings.

“You’re a real headcase, aren’t you babe?” Benny says, ruining the tension. A pause, the Courier scoffs and Benny rushes on. “Ah, no offense. About the head, I mean. Sorry about that, by the way. The scar is aces though. Real sexy look--”

The Courier chuckles, the sound rich and low even through the wall, and then someone groans, a raw, guttural sound that accompanies that first thrust, Vulpes knows. Such a sound would be a shame to imagine falling from the checkered man’s profane lips. It can only be the Courier. Vulpes will believe that it is the Courier. He presses his ear to the wall a little more fully. Shifts silently to relieve the ache in his knees he’s just now noticed.  Vulpes regrets now that he has not needed this vantage into the checkered man’s private quarters enough times to warrant a spy-hole. He also regrets the growing tightness of his trousers. Vulpes palms his erection, exhaling slow and silent as he thinks about Benny’s face pressed cruely into the mattress to silence him, the Courier’s whipcord body taught as his hips pump…

And yet Benny does not silence himself up even as he is taken. Breath turns ragged. His strange lexicon goes even more wild with old world slang Vulpes doubts the imbecile understands. With every grunt he grows more absurd and repulsive. He does not belong in this world, a profane stain on the earth. It will be rectified.

Vulpes wants the Courier to command silence. Vulpes wants to hear only moans and grunts, whispered, forbidden curses. Vulpes would have told the checkered man to shut up, should he found himself in such a deplorable position, but the Courier lets him babble instead, until they find a sort of wordless noise. Benny’s words and the Courier’s dissolve into incoherent moans and gasps, the sound of a bed slamming again and again against the far wall.

Vulpes’ cock throbs along with the Courier’s throaty groans, the sound of skin slapping hard against skin. His palm grinds up and down on his now painfully hard length. His hand still on the outside of his trousers. Resisting the urge to undo himself entirely and spill into his hand. It would take but a moment, he knows. It’s been so long. Just a moment. He needs only a moment.

With a glance down either side of the dim, crumbing passage, Vulpes’ fingers stray to the silver buckle on thin belt encircling his waist. Fingers buzzing, he undoes himself, licks his hand from heel of his palm to tips of his fingers, leaving it slick. His cock stands hard and bare from the now loose folds of his trousers and he sucks on his fingers, imagining that his lips are wrapped around something else. His cock pulses, screaming for contact. Resigned, near shaking with how silent he must be, Vulpes takes himself in hand. These acts are so much easier in a toga…

A few pumps against his slick palm, the tingle and ache of his need sudden and violent. Shuddering through him like the primal fear and visceral challenge of a nightstalker making itself known just at its teeth close around a pulsing throat. Vulpes leans his ear hard to the wall, his shoulder too, drinking in every sound as he works the full length of his cock. The Courier is loud, near bellowing, drowning out Benny’s cries and for that, Vulpes is grateful. He does not need to be distracted by the worthless one.

The Courier comes with an urgent cry and Vulpes bears his cock with cruel fingers, pumps his wrist hard and fast, swallows a desperate groan as the promise of his climax races up his legs like cold fire. His cock pulses in his grip and he spills into his cupped hand, shuddering. Not sure if he is feeling disgust or further need. Not caring, as his heart pounds in his ears and his bones turn to liquid.

And then silence. Ragged, muffled breathing from the other side of the wall. Panting himself, Vulpes tucks his lingering erection back into his trousers, buttoning himself up one handed, the one other still uselessly sticky with his fluids. He casts around for something to clean himself with, and then remembers the handkerchief tucked into his jacket pocket. With a noise of mild disgust he wipes his hand clean and stuffs the soiled rag back where it belongs.

And then it’s quiet. Benny mumbles and the Courier hums an agreement. Vulpes sinks down against the wall, fingers digging into the carpet. He must stay and listen, wait for the Courier to finish whatever it is he’s doing with this profligate. Find out who this man will truly be. If Vulpes is correct about his character.

Still, a vague unease gnaws at him. It is always like this. Waiting in unclean places, touched by greed and lust. Waiting, watching. He must find some way to entertain itself, mustn't he? His cock is still semi-hard, unsatisfied for lack of contact with another body, and Vulpes sits against the wall, wrapped in a warm, needy buzz, reflecting on how the Courier must have looked with his thrusting hips, nails hard and cruel against flesh, demanding, his face pulled into an expression of harsh extacy, his red hair sweat-damp and clinging to his forehand, the scar red and angry across his temple.

No. He is done with such foolish distractions. A moment of weakness he will punish himself for later. Now Vulpes must again rehearse the lines he will deliver to the Courier. _The eye of Caesar is upon you..._

A while later, there’s a shift in the room and Vulpes startles to alertness. Benny’s voice cuts through the silence. “So that’s how it’s gonna be,” he says. There’s a note of terror, a tremor to his too carefully casual words.

The Courier makes a long, drawn out, affirmative noise-mmmhmm. “Game was rigged, like you said.”

A scuffle, another creak of bedsprings, and a gunshot cracks through the air. The sound thrills through Vulpes, mixed with his lingering arousal, his cock half hardening again. Another gunshot after a staccato pause, just a stutter of hesitation before someone pulls the trigger once more.

 

~~~

 

The Courier looks fresh when he steps past the threshold of the Tops, his clothes unwrinkled and set with military precision. He does not look as if he’d just fucked his way into exacting revenge. He does not wear a hat for the first time that Vulpes has seen, and the top of his red hair is combed back in from his forehead, the sides clean, shorn down from the temples. In one hand is the hat, held loosely in his fingers. The other hand holds something shiny. A poker chip. Of brightest silver metal. It dances over his knuckles and then the Courier palms it with his long, rough hands, making it vanish.

Vulpes’ heart beats against his ribs and he gathers himself, shoving down the twisting, nervous feeling writing in his gut. Now he steps smoothly in front of the Courier, his own hat firmly in place on his head. It feels ill-fitting. He feels nearly undressed. Rumpled. Unworthy.

The Courier’s eyes are deeply brown, and hold a hint of surprise, though he is quick to recover. He looks Vulpes up and down and the corner of his mouth twitches up.

“Can I help you, stranger?” He’s got a self-satisfied rumble in his voice. There’s a few specks of blood on his cheek, and his collar, belying his otherwise crisp appearance. Vulpes can’t help but let his eyes linger on the flecks of crimson. But that’s not the only thing new on the Courier’s person. He’s got a 9 mm on his hip, one engraved and far to ostentatious to be his own. It was the gun that had put the Courier in a shallow grave, the gun that had belonged to Benny and ended his life. A dead man’s gun. It could be nothing else.  

Vulpes gathers himself. For a moment at loss for words. As if he had not practiced this speech a hundred times over.

“The eyes of Caesar are upon you…” The words feel stiff as they tumble free: the promise of glory and a chance that few have ever been offered; to meet with Caesar face to face. Even most in the Legion have not been bestowed such an honor. To give it to an outsider was so bold a gesture it may shatter the earth. Put perhaps he will not be an outsider long.

Vulpes lifts the Mark of Caesar, and the Courier’s lopsided grin widens as he grabs Vulpes’ wrist and pulls the mark from his suddenly buzzing fingers, the ones that had so recently been sticky with his spent fluids. The Courier’s grip on his wrist is an unnecessary gesture that makes Vulpes tense, ready to strike, but the Courier lets go as quickly as he had latched on.

“You’re no stranger… Aren’t you that Legion fellow from Nipton? The one who’s _real_ into running lotteries and busting kneecaps? And into accessorizing with dogs...”

Vulpes sniffs, draws himself up and the Courier’s grin goes lopsided again. “I am Vulpes Inculta,” he says with a frown. “The greatest of my lord’s frumentarii. Go to Caesar. The mark will protect you, any crimes against the Legion forgiven, and you will understand.”

Vulpes drops his eyes to the pocket where the Courier has stashed the chip, his gaze obvious. The Courier shifts, loops his fingers into his belt, jean-clad hips thrust forward, and he grins. Vulpes tears his eyes from the Courier, turns away.

“Sure, Mr. Inculta,” the Courier calls after him. “I’ll be seeing you there, I hope.”  

Vulpes feels the Courier’s eyes burning into him all down the Strip, and for once he does not mind being seen.


End file.
